The Walnut Cove board of commissioners should insist on answers as to why its police department continued to employ a part-time police officer more than 10 years after the Stokes County Sheriff's Office, which had fired the same officer, told the police department about allegations of sexual abuse against him. Once it gets answers, the board should give the public a full accounting of what it has learned -- and how it intends to handle such cases in the future.
The board could take up the matter in closed session at its meeting tonight.
The situation finally came to light after the officer in question, 51-year-old Michael Mabe, resigned last month, just before the sheriff's office charged him with 15 counts of taking indecent liberties with a child. The sheriff's office, along with the State Bureau of Investigation, took up the case earlier in December after it received a report of abuse from a member of the victim's family, the Winston-Salem Journal's John Hinton reported. The family member had originally filed a report with the county's social-services department in 1990. It was an allegation of abuse from 1987 through 1989.
No charges were filed at that time, and the sheriff's office didn't learn of the allegations until about 1997. That office is trying to find out more about how the initial report of the alleged abuse was handled.
Mabe served as an auxiliary deputy and worked for the town simultaneously, but that dual service was short. He worked for the sheriff's office for only about two months but worked for the town from 1996 until last month.
Mabe is presumed innocent unless proved otherwise in a court of law, but we have to wonder why he wasn't charged earlier. And the biggest question is why the police department didn't take action after receiving the information from the sheriff's office.
Police departments should hold their officers to the highest standards. But because no action was taken, Mabe may have posed a threat to public safety -- a threat with a badge and a gun.
Barry Conaway was the town's police chief when the information was received. Conaway, who did not return calls from the Journal requesting comment on the case, was fired from the department in 2008.
Town officials said in March 2008 that Conaway was fired in part because he did not follow procedure to resolve a conflict with a bank regarding a town account.
The town manager, Homer Dearmin, said that the allegations against Mabe were not a factor in Conaway's firing. But Dearmin said that the town should have investigated the allegations when it learned of them in 1997.
Indeed. In the interest of public trust, answers are needed quickly in this case.
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